


Do Me The Honour, It's For A Good Cause

by laireshi



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Fix-It, Getting Together, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Secret Empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-20 15:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13149351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: Tony finds the perfect way to make everyone trust Steve again: he just has to propose to him.





	Do Me The Honour, It's For A Good Cause

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/gifts).



> Post-Secret Empire; Steve is no longer Hydra. There are mentions of the Civil War storyline.
> 
> Thanks to runningondreams for beta!

Steve caught his shield and looked around the battlefield, scanning for more threats, but all the Hydra agents were down. He wiped at his forehead. Punching the Hydra goons felt good, but he couldn’t ignore the very simple fact that it was _his_ fault they were even here. Hydra only managed to grow so strong because it had been _Steve_ himself leading them.

First things first, he told himself. There was a kid hiding behind a car. They should find his parents. Steve walked around the hood and extended his hand to help the kid up.

The boy scrambled away from him, terror in his eyes. 

“Easy.” Iron Man landed next to them. “You okay, kiddo?”

Steve stepped back. Letting Tony handle it would be best; he’d always been great with kids.

He turned to help load the Hydra agents into the secure SHIELD transport, but the SHIELD agents were _also_ all looking at him with varying levels of apprehension. 

It wasn’t their fault. They were more than right not to trust him anymore. Maybe if someone had doubted Steve before . . . But that wasn’t fair, he couldn’t blame anyone but himself. Tony had told him years ago about the effect Steve had on people and Steve had discarded it then. Now he’d learnt where blind trust led to. And it hurt, that the public doubted him, that civilians and even some heroes looked at him doubtfully, but maybe it was a _good_ thing, in the long run.

In the end, he stood away from the scene, avoiding everyone’s eyes, waiting for Tony to take them both back home.

He watched Tony smile and joke with the kid, watched the kid respond to him, cautious at first but with a growing smile of his own. Finally Tony picked the kid up in his arms. He walked away from Steve toward a clearly relieved woman running towards them. She took the kid from Tony and hugged him close. Tony nodded and smiled, then stepped back, clearly meaning to return to Steve, when the woman stopped him and hugged him too, armour and all. Steve couldn’t hear the words at that distance, but he could see Tony shaking his head and pointing at Steve. Smiling. Explaining. The perfect hero. The woman didn’t look convinced, but she nodded in Steve’s direction, and finally turned back to her boy.

Tony looked straight at Steve then. His faceplate was up, and Steve could see his raised eyebrow. 

He smiled back, trying to appear charming. 

“Uh huh,” Tony’s voice in Steve’s comm said. “Spying on me, soldier?”

“Just waiting for you,” Steve said. “You really don’t have to convince them I’m the good guy.”

There was a silence as Tony flew up, reaching Steve in seconds.

“Tony—”

“Nope,” Tony said. “I’m not having that conversation with you _again_. Oh who am I kidding, of course I am. But not right now, and not right here. Come on, Avenger, we’re going home.”

Steve couldn’t help but smile at it. Being an Avenger always meant so much to him. “Okay.” He hesitated. “The kid . . .?”

“My armour says he’s totally fine, if scared. He wasn’t hurt, Steve, and even if he were, it wouldn’t have been _your_ fault.”

But it would’ve been. And Tony “Everything is my responsibility and therefore everything is my fault” Stark really couldn’t talk here.

Steve didn’t say that out loud, though. He was tired, so very tired of arguing with Tony, always fighting with him about important things and little things and _everything_ in between.

“Let’s go home,” he said instead.

Tony smiled at him, one of his rare true smiles. He opened his arms in invitation, and Steve stepped close to him, wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist, and then Tony wrapped his arms around Steve, flipped his faceplate down, and took off.

He flew slowly, as he always did when carrying Steve, not willing to let him go cold from the rush of air around them. But Steve was still high on adrenaline, in his Captain America suit, and he kinda wanted Tony to go faster, just for the thrill of it, to feel the velocity and the bite of the wind against his face.

He knew Tony would never drop him. He felt the safest in the world in these moments when Tony took him flying and held him in his arms.

Their arrival at the Tower stopped Steve’s trail of thought.

They were home.

Steve had no idea why Tony of all people had been the one to accept him back into his life without so much as a doubt, to give him a home _again_ , and he was incredibly grateful for it. 

Tony kept finding him in the ice and saving him and Steve loved him for it.

It wasn’t a new realisation, but he rarely let himself think that, and now—now, even that was laced with guilt. Steve remembered what the evil version of him had said and done; he remembered all of it. He remembered how important destroying Tony had been to that man, all because _Steve loved him_.

(Steve loved his country, too, the liberty and freedom and all the ideals that it _should_ be, even if it that wasn’t what it always was, and that other him had ruined America, too—but somehow it felt less painful, less personal than what he’d tried to do to Tony.)

Tony pulled his helmet off. He was pale, with dark bruises around his eyes: none of them had had time to rest lately, but the sight still worried Steve. He bit back the urge to apologise. The unrelenting work was his fault, but Tony would disagree, and Steve’s attempt at avoiding arguments would fail spectacularly. 

“So,” Tony said. “We should talk.”

Steve sighed. He gestured at them both, raising an eyebrow. _Now_? Tony was still armoured up; Steve definitely needed a shower after the battle. 

Tony chuckled. “Okay, let’s change first. But this is important. I—I need to tell you something.”

Steve frowned. He’d thought Tony wanted to lecture him, again, on the topic of Steve’s own innocence in their current troubles, but this sounded different. He had a thousand questions and just as many fears all of a sudden. “Are you okay . . . ?” he asked, because this was the most important thing.

Tony chuckled. “Yeah. No worries, Winghead.”

Steve nodded. He thought, for a change, it might be nice if he listened to Tony Stark.

***

Steve walked in the living room in fresh, soft clothes; his hair was still wet from the shower but he didn’t particularly care. He sat on the sofa and waited for Tony. 

Tony came in a few minutes later, dressed impeccably in a gorgeous, dark grey three-piece suit that made Steve’s mouth go dry even if it seemed terribly out of place for what was supposed to be a personal conversation.

“Last-minute business meeting?” Steve asked, trying to hide his disappointment. 

“What?” Tony looked at him as if he was going crazy. “No, I promised you we’d talk, I just—“ He cut himself off, looked around. “You’ll see,” he said.

Steve cocked his head. He certainly didn’t mind the suit, but formal wear at home was unlike Tony. 

Tony settled next to him with a heavy sigh. “Look, Steve,” he said, looking him straight in the eyes. “I hate to ask you this, but . . . What do you remember?”

Tony didn’t specify what he was asking about, but he really didn’t need to. The answer was easy, if painful. Without looking away, Steve said, “Everything.”

The worst part was: he remembered what that other him had done, but he _didn’t_ remember what feeling and thinking like him was like. And Steve never wanted to know that, but it meant he remembered the events as a remote spectator, and . . . Steve had seen too much of himself in that twisted man. It _wasn’t_ him, but it _could’ve been_. All the plans, all the strategies: it had been Steve’s mind making them.

Steve hated that most of all.

Tony exhaled slowly. “Okay,” he said. A beat of silence. “I remember everything too.”

Steve looked at him sharply. “How do you mean?”

Tony didn’t meet his eyes this time, his head hunched over his knees. “I remember everything my AI self saw.”

“I already know that.”

“Yeah,” Tony muttered. “And I remember more than that.”

Something cold settled in Steve’s stomach, but he let Tony talk.

“I remember what happened when I was in the coma. And I remember what happened in the Superhero Civil War. Not the recent one, Steve. _Ours_.”

 _Ours_. The one in which Steve almost killed Tony.

Tony had sworn he’d deleted his own memories of it all.

“I don’t know why,” Tony said. “I guess—having my consciousness be uploaded into a purely digital form helped. Or, well, didn’t help, I can see why I’d deleted them in the first place.” He shuddered, and Steve could finally see how on edge Tony really was. Normally Tony didn’t let information like that slip.

Was that why he’d dressed so formally? Another mask? 

“Was it true?” Tony asked. “What that other Steve said? That you . . .”

Steve held up a hand to stop him from saying the words. He didn’t think he could bear to hear Tony speak them. He looked around the room, but there wasn’t anything he could really keep his eyes on. The walls were bare, the pictures not yet rehung. An empty space, waiting to be rebuilt into their home.

“Steve . . .” Tony said.

Steve looked at Tony, because he owed him that. He focused on the impossible blue of his eyes and said, “Yes.” And then, because that was not enough, because Tony should hear it from Steve’s mouth, should _know the truth_ , Steve continued talking. “I love you. I’ve loved you for so long, Tony, I don’t remember when it started. I loved you when we started teams together. I loved you when we fought, because I didn’t know how _not_ to love you. I think that’s why those fights always hurt so much. I love you, Tony; I probably always will.”

Steve’s voice broke. He was shaking, but so was Tony. Steve wanted to reach out and wasn’t sure he was allowed.

“The things I remember, Steve,” Tony whispered. “You died, and it was my fault. I—I told that fake you the story. That it wasn’t worth it.” His voice was unsteady too. “I—look, the only thing regaining my memories gave me, Steve, is that now I _know_ what having to go on without you was like. And—I’d never even told you the truth. I argued with you, and I lost you; that’s never acceptable.” He looked down. “I feel like I’ve always loved you,” he said in a small voice. “And I was so scared of telling you, and then you died, and . . .” Tony shook his head. He straightened his back and faced Steve again. “I’m not making the same mistake again. I’m telling you now. I love you, Steve.”

Steve felt like he was dreaming. Things like that didn’t happen in real life.

Tony’s eyes were red-rimmed, but he wasn’t crying—Steve thought he might’ve been for how blurry his vision became—and Tony looked so strong and so brave and so beautiful, and Steve loved him.

He’d never counted on Tony loving him back.

“There’s never gonna be a good time,” Tony continued. “So no more secrets, Steve. No more lost chances. I love you. You said you love me, too.”

“I do,” Steve confirmed, because it was _important_.

“I got the idea today,” Tony said suddenly in a complete non sequitur, leaving Steve with a feeling not unlike a whiplash. “People still don’t trust you. I wondered how to show everyone that you _can_ be trusted. That I trust you with everything, since apparently I’m in the public’s good graces for the moment.”

“Tony, what are you talking about?” Steve asked.

“And I thought, hey, if everything _I_ remember is true, then it’s a win-win situation for once.”

Steve still didn’t understand.

“I love you,” Tony repeated seriously. 

Steve got that. He didn’t understand anything else Tony was saying.

He understood even less when Tony got down on one knee in front of him and pulled a dark red velvet box out of his suit pocket.

“Steve Rogers,” Tony said. He opened the box and presented it to Steve. “Will you marry me?”

And sure enough, there was a ring inside; red and blue and gold.

And for everything that Steve still didn’t understand, there was only one answer he could ever give to this question when Tony was asking.

“Yes,” he said, and Tony smiled incredibly softly, and slid the ring onto Steve’s finger.

It was not a surprise that it fit perfectly. 

Tony didn’t let his hand go. He kept it loosely between his hands, a point of contact between them.

“It’s crazy,” Tony said. “Even for us . . .”

“But it feels so right,” Steve finished for him. He mentally rewound to Tony’s previous words and frowned. “Wait, what you said—did you only _propose to me_ as a PR stunt, because—”

Tony looked almost hurt. “I would never do that to you,” he said. “It just—gave me the idea to do it now. It made sense. You’re you and I’m me. You know our lives. Everything else could change again tomorrow.”

“True,” Steve said, staring at his hand clasped between Tony’s. They’d held hands before. It shouldn’t feel so intimate, but it did. So very much.

“And then I thought, hey, finally tax benefits? Being able to say ‘he’s my husband and you can’t kick me out’ the next time one of us inevitably lands himself in the hospital? In my defense, that part occurred to me maybe an hour ago when I was taking a shower, and I actually still haven’t slept for two days.” Tony was babbling, but Steve didn’t mind, feeling very giddy himself. “And then I thought I could actually promise, with witnesses, to be at your side forever,” Tony added in a quieter voice, full of affection. “And you’d always know it. And suddenly I really, really wanted it.”

Steve pulled Tony up and next to him. “Tony,” he said, gently. “I don’t need witnesses. I trust you. I love it. I believe you. And I’ll marry you, because _it’s you_. It’s always been you.”

They leant their foreheads together; the closest they’d ever been physically outside of sparring, and _freshly engaged._

Steve would need a moment to process that.

“I really want to kiss you,” he said.

Tony chuckled. “I don’t know, Steve, shouldn’t you take me on a date first—”

“I don’t know, _fiancé_ , should I?”

Tony surged forward and kissed Steve, and it was the first time and _they would get married_ and Steve kissed him back. Tony’s lips were soft and his moustache was not; Steve touched Tony’s cheek and it was warm under his fingers. Steve had never really let himself think about what kissing Tony might feel like, before, but he knew nothing he could’ve imagined could be half as good as this: Tony’s tongue moving against his, hot and insistent, and Tony’s hand curled around his arm, almost painful but grounding, and he felt powerful and alive and like anything he wanted was in his reach.

They separated, eventually, and stared at each other, both out of breath and grinning.

Steve loved this impossible, impossible man.

Tony settled against him wordlessly, and Steve wrapped his arms around him. The suit—and now Steve knew why Tony had chosen to wear it in the first place—couldn’t have been all that comfortable to lie down in, but Tony snuggled into Steve’s side, stretching his legs on the sofa, and Steve pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

Kissing and snuggling aside, it didn’t feel that different to how they’d _always_ been.

But now they’d finally _said_ it, and Steve knew that Tony loved him back, and it changed everything.

Tony fell asleep against his side almost immediately— _he’d been awake for how long?_ Steve wondered—and Steve couldn’t stop smiling.

He loved Tony, and now the world would know, but more importantly: Tony already knew.

And Steve, miraculously, felt happy, the ring on his finger a promise of a good tomorrow.


End file.
